Faten KanaanThe Botanist and The Archaeologist

First full-length record from Faten Kanaan, who manually arpeggiates her way through her collection of vintage synthesisers to produce massive, thickly-textured electronic pieces with a tangible humanity. Edition of 300 LPs, each of which comes with a unique, hand-crafted Cyanotype print. On Polytechnic Youth.

REVIEWS

Scary synth artist Faten Kanaan should appeal to all you goblins listening to Goblin. Her music is so B-movie terrifying that it’s leading me towards a conspiracy theory that horror films are made to supplement their scary scores. With a synth that sounds like a bastardised church organ at times, she lays down supernatural chord progressions and squeaky melodies that shift between tension terror and sweet euphoria.

Polytechnic Youth knew what they were getting into when they decided to get this one out: it’s as versatile a synth symphony you’ll get in the wake of our John Carpenter end days. “Roman de Gare” feels like an intersection of medieval and futurist, weaving a tapestry of minute melodies that counterbalance one another chillingly. “Poppy” blurs its lines with dramatically phased electronics for video game boss fights, while “Janus Point” is corridor goth pop for your next film’s climax. Each vignette on this record feels like it could serve a different purpose, showcasing Kanaan as an artist who needs, above all, to be commissioned for several thousand jobs right now.